Vesper Peak

North Face

September 8, 2001

This climb, with it's fabled
beautiful long slab, and tricky routefinding
above the Vesper Glacier has been on my list a long time. Steve was also
keen on the route, so together we set out on a fine Saturday morning.
Earlier, we had planned to meet Alex and Tom for a climb of Big
Four Mountain via the North Face. But I was pretty tired from a tough
week at work, and all the cumulative weekends in the mountains of the
past month. I wasn't up for Big Four, and to boot, spent a sleepless
night worrying about it. I was disappointed to bail on them for
something easier, but I also find I don't get very far when I'm not
excited about something. So we met and said goodbye at the Big Four
parking lot, and Steve and I continued to the Headlee Pass trailhead.

Amazingly, this was Steve's first visit to anything on the Mountain Loop
Highway. Oh the times I've had here! My first visits were drenched in
rain and fog. Now I've learned to wait for the weather, and have really
come to enjoy this area. The peaks are low, sometimes brushy, but very
rugged, and crowded among each other. There are no flat spots aside from
the valley floors. The forests are dank and dripping always. The rock is
often of dubious quality, and trails are overgrown. But it's not crowded,
filled with mining history, and close to home! Yeehah!

We hiked through forest, crossed the stream, continued up a brushy, wet hillside,
and gorged on blueberries in the basin below the pass. The circ of surrounding
mountains was very impressive. We attained the pass via short, steep switchbacks,
and entered the valley dominated by Vesper and Sperry Peaks. Filling water bottles
at the stream, we continued up steep and brushy trail to a high shoulder of
Vesper. Traversing granite slabs, we came to a notch where we expected to
drop onto the Vesper Glacier, still in shadow on the north side.

Doh! Steve forgot his crampons!Doh! In the next instant, Steve sprained his ankle!

Holy cow, I considered tying him up to stop the run of bad luck, but that would
probably have led to another Doh! moment. We sat, fighting back tears as Steve
gingerly tested his ankle. Definitely out of commission. Looking closely at
the glacier, we saw crampons really were a requirement, as there was steep
hard snow and 3-4 small crevasses to deal with. There was another way to
reach the route: traverse on rock and heather ledges to the base of the slab.
The Beckey description calls the traverse "unpleasant", and laments that
some of the fun climbing is bypassed. I was definitely not ready to call it a
day, so hatched a scheme to do the climb by myself. I took the rope and rack,
intending to use it if I got to exposed, loose or difficult terrain.

I bid Steve farewell, and we planned to meet on the summit. He rested his ankle,
and helped me make the traverse with some "routefinding shout-out." ("Up?!?" "...NO...GO DOWN AND RIGHT!...") Initially, the traverse was easy walking and scrambling.
At one point, I really had to think about a secure way to go down and across,
not liking the muddy steep options available. I excavated a solid rock handhold from
the mud to make the moves possible. Eventually, I neared the slab but reached very
exposed terrain. Here I anchored to the cliff, changed into rock shoes, and got
the rope out. I trailed it behind me, planning to start belaying when/if I needed
to (and assuming I could find something to belay from!). Needless to say, I was
moving very slowly and carefully. I climbed straight up on good rock, and before
I knew it, I was walking on a wide ledge at the base of the slab. A little cairn
marked the likely place to start upward.

The shaded granite slab looks very blank, but several lines can be seen. Moving
left would put you in a corner, where protection opportunities would be greater,
but the overall angle looked steeper. Moving up and slightly right seemed to keep
the angle lower, and still keep you near some intermittent features that would
provide good hand or footholds. I decided to go this way. I took a few deep
breaths, looked at the glacier below, wiped the dirt off my shoes and started up.

Pad, pad, pad. It was very quiet, just my heartbeat and my shoes. I had entered a
great silent sea. I felt very committed since the slab was too featureless to climb
down. And there was little in the way of anchors for the rope. Places to relax did
come in the form of horizontal flaring cracks, which made good holds. Some of them might
hold a cam or a nut too. I continued up and right, not really thinking but
concentrating totally on the task at hand. Eventually, I found a long flare
that led up and left, taking me quickly to the top of the slab. Wow! Elatedly,
I followed the crest to a flat area, and changed into boots. I looked for
Steve and made the short hike to the summit. The views were incredible. I looked
across at Sloan Peak, where I had stood the week before. I saw Columbia, Del Campo,
and Mt. Dickerman, the other summits I'd climbed around here. I felt a great
kinship with this mountain, having concentrated on it for what felt like a year
during the space of an hour. I talked with a few others on the summit, and
started down.

Steve hadn't made the climb, being concerned about getting out safely. As it turned
out, he could descend as quickly as anyone would want to, he just had to avoid
a few awkward ankle positions. We promised to come back and do the entire climb
together later.

I got home to find it had been quite a day in the mountains for many people.
Alex and Tom had an adventure in the great brushfields of Big Four, making a
series of committing rappels. Tragically, a climber died on the East Face
of Chair Peak, after unroping on "easy", but loose, terrain. There were two
other minor injuries that I heard about on the news as well.

A view from the summit

Big Four and Copper Lake. Alex and Tom were struggling in brush over there...

Below the Great Slab

Slab and glacier below

Morning Star Peak

A magical mushroom in the Enchanted Forest! I'm getting very sleepy...